Cook County, 7 miles W of the Loop. The town of Cicero, bordered on the north and east by Chicago, is the suburb nearest to downtown. Named for a town in New York State, Cicero has the only town form of government in Cook County, and is governed by a board of trustees. Present-day Cicero, 5.5 square miles, is less than one-sixth of its original 36 square-mile area.

Ogden Avenue, a former Indian trail, was one of the early thoroughfares through Cicero. The first homesteaders in the town settled on the highest and driest part of Cicero (now
Oak Park
). Other families settled along Ogden Avenue, Lake Street, and Cermak Road (22nd Street). When the Galena & Chicago Union
Railroad
was built westward from Chicago in 1848, Cicero became the first western suburb connected to the city by rail.

In 1857 inhabitants formed the township of Cicero in order to levy taxes for roads and drainage ditches. In 1869 Cicero was incorporated as a town, and that same year, Chicago
annexed
11 square miles along Cicero's eastern edge. The town's population of 3,000 dropped 50 percent as a result.

Cicero's location on several rail lines influenced the Chicago & North Western Railway and the Chicago & Alton Railroad companies to establish manufacturing and repair shops there. Small communities began to develop around these and other industries, such as the Brighton Silver Smelting & Refining Company and the Brighton Cotton Mill.

During the 1880s new residents were drawn to the industries in the northern part of the town along the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad. As these communities expanded they began to meld. Some of these areas later separated from Cicero; others, such as Clyde and Hawthorne, remained as names of railroad stops.

In 1889 Chicago again annexed territory along Cicero's eastern border, and by 1897,
street railways
ran from the city into Cicero. In 1899, Chicago annexed its last portion of Cicero, including the
Austin
area. Cicero ceded the Hawthorne Race Track to
Stickney
in 1900, and in 1901, Oak Park and
Berwyn
separated from Cicero.

Western Electric Company

Western Electric established a
telephone
equipment manufacturing plant in Cicero in 1904 employing more than 20,000 people, a number that dwarfed the population of Cicero, which was only 14,557 in 1910. Cicero's population more than quadrupled over the next 20 years, with the majority of newcomers Eastern European immigrants. Yet there was still enough open land for Cicero Field, one of Chicago's earliest airfields.

Cicero's position at the edge of Chicago attracted criminal elements wishing to evade Chicago's law enforcement agencies. In the mid to late 1920s, the gangster Al Capone established his headquarters in Cicero. At the end of the century government officials were convicted on charges of corruption that recalled the town's earlier reputation.

Racial tensions surfaced in Cicero throughout the 1950s and 1960s when residents resisted
African Americans
moving into their community. At the end of the twentieth century, although Cicero had virtually no black residents, people of Hispanic or Asian ancestry contributed to its mixture of ethnic cultures. Ethnic tensions surfaced in town politics as an entrenched Republican organization reluctantly shared power with an emerging Hispanic majority.

Cicero, IL (inc. 1867)

Year

Total
(and by category)

Foreign Born

Native with foreign parentage

Males per 100 females

1870

1,545

34.6%

—

—

1,541

White (99.7%)

4

Colored (0.3%)

1900

16,310

—

—

—

1930

66,602

29.3%

—

106

66,436

White (99.8%)

5

Negro (0.0%)

9

Chinese (0.0%)

1

Japanese (0.0%)

151

Mexican (0.2%)

1960

69,130

14.9%

34.7%

96

69,093

White (99.9%)

4

Negro (0.0%)

33

Other races (0.0%)

1990

67,436

23.9%

—

99

50,717

White (75.2%)

173

Black (0.3%)

249

American Indian (0.4%)

1,157

Asian/Pacific Islander (1.7%)

15,140

Other race (22.5%)

24,148

Hispanic Origin* (35.8%)

2000

85,616

43.6%

—

106

41,327

White alone (48.3%)

956

Black or African American alone (1.1%)

759

American Indian and Alaska Native alone (0.9%)

828

Asian alone (1.0%)

38

Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone (0.0%)

38,277

Some other race alone (44.7%)

3,431

Two or more races (4.0%)

66,299

Hispanic or Latino* (77.4%)

Betsy Gurlacz

Bibliography

Anderson, Alan B., and George W. Pickering.
Confronting the Color Line: The Broken Promise of the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago.
1986.